Monthly Columns Archives

Think about affordable housing. What image comes into your mind? Is it a cutting-edge piece of architecture? A boxy looking brutalist tower design from the 1960s? A row of townhouses on a city street?

COVID-19 is in headlong retreat: infections down 70 percent since January, seven-day average hospitalizations and deaths down 66 percent and 77 percent. In less than six months, Covid-19 vaccines in America will have gone from impossibility through scarcity to surplus, with the administration announcing that “all willing American adults will be able to receive a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of May.”

Andrés Duany ranks among the world’s most influential urban planners. He is the father of “New Urbanism,” the theory of town planning and architectural design that enables walkability, transit and diverse communities.

The vaccines are arriving in the millions, and they work. When do we get back to normal?

Three years out of law school, Debbie Kleban joined four partners in founding the Chicago law firm of Applegate & Thorne-Thomsen, P.C. in 1998. Over the next 23 years, she played an instrumental role in the firm’s successes. In recognition of her leadership and commitment to the firm, her partners unanimously approved her to succeed Ben Applegate as the managing partner in January 2021.

The legendary American humorist sure hit the nail on the head with that quip. Even though he spoke those words about 100 years ago, they still ring true today.

I talked to a handful of leading affordable housing developers for an article in this month’s issue on what challenges and opportunities they are facing in 2021. While not a comprehensive survey, I think it represents a good sampling of larger developers.

Over a long career of observing developers at close range, I’ve evolved an understanding of how they think and act, and, as a result, find myself with an unexpected sympathy for them. Though the algorithmic model that follows may seem reductive, time and again it’s been critical to making good deals happen and succeed. Consider it the wisdom of experience.

Holly Wiedemann is an award-winning developer based in Lexington, KY and a leading advocate for affordable housing and historic preservation.

In November, 1478, Pope Sixtus IV by fiat granted Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain authority to name inquisitors plenipotentiary to protect the one true faith from unbelievers. In October, 2000, multiply re-elected Boston mayor Thomas Menino by fiat created for the Boston Redevelopment Authority the Impact Advisory Group process to protect communities from ‘large-scale’ developers. The mayor’s action, like those of many other big-city mayors across the country, reflected a pattern of increasing NIMBY empowerment now triumphant in far too many American cities: an elaborate public spectacle casting a veneer of altruistic morality over a power play culminating in an autocratic decision.

Daryl Carter grew up in Detroit, the son of a factory worker and a maid who fled the South after World War II to seek a better life. They instilled a strong work ethic in their son and encouraged him to pursue the best possible education.

Seems like we’ve been waiting for 2021 to arrive for much longer than a year, doesn’t it? I mean, who can blame us? COVID-19. Economic crash. Disruptions to work and school routines. Restaurants closed. Curfews in some cities and states. Budget impasses. Election drama. And to make matters worse, 2020 was a leap year. We had one whole extra day to wallow in our collective misery.